


burned into my brain are these stolen images

by icarusandtheson



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Actors, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:27:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21862189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarusandtheson/pseuds/icarusandtheson
Summary: After a blow-out with the director gets Alex fired from his latest project, he shows up at a party he absolutely doesn't want to be at to try and salvage his career. Trust George to show up when Alex least wants him there, when he needs him most.
Relationships: Alexander Hamilton & George Washington, Alexander Hamilton/George Washington
Comments: 15
Kudos: 41





	burned into my brain are these stolen images

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [watch me disappear into the sun](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17662472) by [icarusandtheson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarusandtheson/pseuds/icarusandtheson). 



> hi, it's been a minute. this is in the same universe as "watch me disappear into the sun", a couple years after that fic.

Alex sips from his glass and grimaces. His drink’s gone unpleasantly warm; the ice melted during a too-long conversation with someone whose name he already forgot, but it burns when he swallows, and that’s enough. He doesn’t want to risk going back to the bar for another -- not when a steadily growing crowd of admirers is gathering there, everyone eager to get George a drink, to get a piece of him after his absence. Some more literally than others. 

Not that Alex blames any of them. He still fills out a suit unfairly well, still has that laugh that carries across a room. His head tilts to listen to someone beside him over the din of the party, and the diamonds in his ears catch the light. Alex muffles a snort into his glass. They should look tacky,  _ George  _ should look tacky, desperate -- reaching for lost youth like everyone else over thirty in this room. That he pulls it off, all easy confidence, is the latest in a long line of injustices in Alex’s life. 

He shouldn’t be here. Neither of them should be here. Alex is suffering it for good optics and networking so people don’t think he’s too much of an asshole to bother working with, but George is supposed to be back in Virginia, taking an extended break on that gorgeous, sprawling farmland he always planned to retire on. 

Lafayette showed him pictures, after he took George up on his invitation to visit. Rolling green hills, fruit trees in bloom. George in old jeans and a T-shirt, a couple days’ worth of stubble along his jaw and a big-eyed mutt perched on his lap, tongue lolled out adoringly. He looked happy, at ease in a way Alex never saw on him before.

He looked like he belonged there. Alex can’t imagine why he would come back.

Maybe he got bored of all the rest, the quiet. Or maybe he realized what everyone else has been thinking since he left: that he’s not old enough to bow out, even if his absence wasn’t the early retirement it was rumored to be, that his face should still be plastered across every billboard in the country, the world. 

Alex lets himself linger on that face for a moment, maybe two -- traces the line of George’s jaw, the upward tick of his mouth. It’s a mistake. When he looks up, George’s eyes are on him. Recognition, surprise, a warmth that Alex definitely doesn’t deserve. George smiles, a slow sunrise thing. Alex breathes around the ache, smiles a poor imitation, and the moment someone else commands George’s attention, he bolts. 

There’s an open set of balcony doors at the far end of the room, blowing marginally cooler air into the hot crush of bodies and cologne and perfume. Alex slips out and downs the rest of his drink like a shot, sucks in fresh air as a chaser. He slumps against the railing and watches listlessly as people walk by below, glittering and laughing and somehow still standing under the weight of so many eyes. 

He wants another drink, something cold and strong enough to make him forget the sweltering party and Washington as its point of orbit. He wants to spend the rest of the night out here, where it’s marginally quieter and marginally cooler and the urge to crawl out of his suit or his skin isn’t so sharp. He wants to go back inside and --

“Alexander.” 

The sound of his name in that mouth and time bends in on itself: he’s standing on his first movie set, his heart in his throat because George Washington’s smile is so much more devastating in person, he’s at his first big afterparty lit up with pride when George praises him in front of friends and colleagues, his arm slung heavy and familiar over Alex’s shoulders. 

It wasn’t that long ago -- all he has left to him are reminders that he’s still green, still largely unestablished -- but he still looks back on that version of himself with a mix of embarrassment and regret. Maybe a little envy, too -- he was a fucking stupid kid, naive beyond belief, but he was living a dream Alex can only recall the fuzzy edges of now. 

Alex looks over his shoulder, and bracing himself didn’t help in the slightest. George in the doorway, light spilling out to illuminate him. It hurts to look at him. It still hurts to look at him.

“Hey.”

“I thought you might come say hello,” George says, stepping out onto the balcony. 

“You seemed busy.” Alex glances back inside. “What happened to your audience?”

“They’ll manage without me.” George smiles, a little rueful. “I’m surprised to see you here.”

Alex shrugs stiffly. He should turn and face George properly, should shake his hand. He holds his glass tight, doesn’t do either of those things. “My agent made me.” 

He sounds like a surly teenager, but it makes George smile again. Softer, this time. “I thought it might be something like that. You never really liked this part.” 

“Thank god for open bars,” Alex says, flat where there should have been levity, and then, “Why are you here?” Painfully blunt, even by his standards. George raises a brow, and the silence stretches. Alex looks away first, chastened, swirling his glass and watching a drop of liquor roll in the crystal.

“I didn’t know you were back,” he says, an amendment, if not an apology. 

“My plane touched down this morning.” 

Alex glances up in surprise. George meets his gaze with a brief, tired smile, the only remnant of jet lag visible on him. He’s more rested around the eyes, his posture perfect but loose, relaxed. All that sunshine and good country air, probably. 

“I tried to call,” George says.

Alex switched his phone to silent about a week ago and hasn’t changed it back; he hasn’t needed to. Beyond a scathing call from his agent and sympathetic messages from friends, there’s been nothing worth his attention. He knew why George was calling, or thought he did, and he knew he couldn’t shoulder the weight of one more person’s disappointment, especially not George’s. 

“I haven’t checked my phone. It’s been hectic.”

“Of course,” George says, like it’s fine. Like anything about the way Alex has treated him has been fine. When Alex doesn’t elaborate, he continues, “Martha wants me in a new project of hers, and there’s some people here tonight that she wants involved. It was all fairly sudden.” 

There’s no reason to be surprised. George wouldn’t be here for any reason other than business, of course there’s a role, of course he’s back. Half the party wouldn’t have been pawing at him unless he was back, unless he was useful. Alex’s stomach roils, a sick ache.

“Aiming for another Oscar?” 

“Doing a favor for a friend,” George corrects. “I don’t think I’ll be back in the awards circuit, but if she happens to pick up another for it, more credit to her.” His smile turns fond, and something sour sits at the back of Alex’s throat. 

“Right back to it,” Alex says, scrutinizing the perfectly pressed lines of George’s suit. He doesn’t recognize it, wonders if it’s new, if George stepped off the plane and right into his tailor’s. 

George inclines his head, concedes the point. “Until Martha’s done with me, at least.” He shifts his weight, the patterns on his suit jacket catching in the light. Alex wonders at the texture of it, the weight. He stops there, at the suit, where it’s still safe to wonder. “She asked about you.”

Alex starts, guilty. “What?”

“She wanted to know how you were,” Alex tenses, waits for the inevitable transition to his latest fuck-up, but George continues, “and if you were working on anything currently -- she hasn’t cast the lead yet.” 

Alex raises an eyebrow. “You’re not --?”

“I’m substantially older than the part calls for.” Something self-deprecating tucked into the corner of George’s mouth. A few more laugh lines than the first time Alex stood this close to him, a little more gray threaded through his eyebrows. Still the most gorgeous man in the place, as if there was ever any doubt.

Still trying to clean up Alex’s messes. 

As Alex’s silence extends, George adds, “Of course, if you’re busy --”

“Yeah,” Alex says. “Tell her thank you, though.” He sees George’s confusion, the furrow in his brow that he quickly smoothes out. Alex has wanted to work with Martha Dandridge since before he even came to L.A.; George probably thought he would jump at the offer, tail wagging. 

“She’s a good person to know -- if not for this project, then the next.” A pause where George is clearly weighing his words. “You deserve another shot at  _ Best Actor _ , and I think she could get you there.” 

Alex smiles, thin. “What happened to having all the time in the world?” 

George’s sympathetic words that never slid into pity, his unshakeable faith that Alex was going to amount to something. It meant everything after that first loss. Maybe it still means something, even after Alex has done his best to ruin his own chances; fuck if he knows anymore. 

George’s eyes go soft, achingly gentle. “You do have all the time in the world. But I know you, and I know you want it more than anything right now. That’s all I meant.”

Alex nods, lets his gaze fall. The balcony overlooks a perfectly manicured garden, a pretty stone pathway cutting through. If Alex dropped his glass, it would fall directly onto the stone and shatter into a million pieces, reflecting rainbows from the bright lights. It would be a start, maybe, towards making this party a little less suffocating.

“How are you, Alex?” George asks. The words are so earnest in his mouth. If Alex threw his glass at the wall, maybe it would be enough to get him to leave. 

“I’m fine.” 

“Alexander --”

“I said I’m  _ fine,”  _ Alex snaps, and knows the moment the words leave his mouth that he’s made a mistake. 

The silence stretches. George’s disapproval is as audible as it ever was and Alex has to fight not to shrink under it. “Gilbert called me after your blowout with Jefferson,” George says finally. Alex stiffens, turns to face him, to -- god. He doesn’t know. He just knows he doesn’t want his back to George while they have this conversation. 

“Not that he had to,” George continues, his expression unreadable. “It was written up in every grocery store tabloid.”

And there it is.

Alex barks a laugh, mirthless and sharp. “Did you follow me out here to lecture me about optics? Don’t bother -- everyone’s already beaten you to it.”

“I’m not here to lecture you,” George says, measured. “But if you want to talk --” 

Alex scoffs. “What’s there to talk about? Jefferson’s a shitty director and fucking impossible to work with. He did me a favor getting me fired.”

George frowns. “Gil said you didn’t have any other work lined up, and he didn’t think you were looking.”

“I  _ am,  _ I just --” Alex tugs his hand through his hair. “I am. And Lafayette needs to mind his own fucking business.”

“He was concerned. To be completely honest, so am I.” 

Alex scoffs. “I’ll land another job -- I’m good at what I do.”

“I’m not talking about the work.” That earnestness, again. Alex looks away, has to, before his eyes adapt to all that righteous light in George’s eyes and he can’t see anything else.

Footsteps, then a heavy hand on his shoulder, commanding his attention. He tenses at the contact, and George’s hand falls away, tucks into his pocket. Alex can feel the warmth his touch left behind bleeding all the way down through his suit. 

He fixes his gaze on George’s bow tie so he doesn’t have to meet his eyes. He’s close enough that Alex can smell the warmth of his cologne and make out the light sheen of sweat on his neck. 

“What happened, Alex?”

Alex shrugs. “You read the tabloids.”

George makes a frustrated noise. “Why were you working with Jefferson to begin with? You’ve never liked him.”

“I made a bad call. It happens.”

“Not to you,” George says. “Not about your work.” 

Alex’s hand aches, cramping where he’s clutching at his glass like a lifeline. It hurts, but at least he’s controlling it. At least he can let go anytime he wants. 

“There have to have been other options,” George says. 

Alex keeps his face blank, says nothing. Not that it’s ever mattered, with George. He reads Alex, read the silence, and it’s almost the same as if Alex spilled his guts outright -- only almost, because at least he doesn’t have to drag the words out of his throat, at least he gets that much. 

He glances at George’s face, can’t help himself -- when has he ever been able to, when has he ever had a fucking chance -- and catches the realization just as it dawns.

“Alex --”

“Don’t.” If George tells him he’s sorry, he’s legitimately going to lose it, loudly and publicly. The tabloids will love it, the latest update in his downward spiral: messy drunk and turning on the man who mentored him when he was nobody. 

“I don’t understand,” George says, brow furrowing. Not disappointment, not yet, but Alex feels the preemptive sting anyway. “You had more interest than you knew what to do with.”

“And I had a lot of auditions.” Alex’s mouth twists up wry. “Apparently, I’m more trouble than I’m worth.” 

George shakes his head -- refuting the claim or else just in disbelief, Alex doesn’t know which, isn’t sure he wants to know which. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Alex scoffs. “Why? So you could fix me up in your friends’ movies because I can’t land a job myself?”

He sees the hurt a moment before George smooths it over, shutters his expression into the same facade he’s put on and off as long as Alex has known him. Alex doesn’t know how to pretend unless a camera is on him, won’t ever be in George’s league in that sense or any other, but he can crack the facade for just a moment and tell himself it’s enough to be satisfied. 

“That’s never been the case,” George says, measured. “You’ve earned every part you’ve played.” 

“Right. And you showing up here dangling the lead role in a Dandridge production in front of me when my career is dead in the water is -- what? A really fucking timely coincidence?”

George’s jaw tightens.  _ “Yes.  _ She likes you, she likes your work, and she has a role she thinks you would work well in. She asked me to mention it because she knows that I talk to you, that’s all.”

“And I’m just supposed to buy that?”

George shuts his eyes for a moment, reaching for some kind of calm. Alex looks inside of himself for any kind of satisfaction and comes up empty-handed -- just absence, there. Just ache. 

“I understand that it matters to you,” George says, slow. “I know that you don’t want anything you haven’t worked for and that you don’t want to be beholden to anyone. But there is a difference between holding to your values and needlessly martyring yourself and your career.” 

And that’s what does it, after months of him keeping his mouth shut -- that exhausted, almost gentle condescension. George sees it moving across his face, says,  _ “Alexander,” _ low and warning, like maybe he believes the tabloids after all and thinks Alex will make a whole-ass scene right here and now. 

“Do you have any idea how many people have asked me if I sucked your dick to get work?” Alex asks. Calm, quiet, ice-fucking-cold because he does, actually, know how. 

George stills. His lips part like he’s going to say something, but there’s nothing there. 

“In the tabloids it was always that shit about me being your illegitimate love child, which was fucked up on its own, but even they weren’t going to imply you weren’t straight. But at parties? At auditions and networking events and anywhere else these fucking sycophants gather for a scrap of attention? I’ve been defending your reputation since the moment I became a part of it.

“Don’t talk to me about my  _ values  _ like you know shit about me. We stop doing movies together and my career goes to shit. You fuck off to Virginia, then come back  _ days  _ after I lose the last opportunity I had with Oscar bait in your pocket. Think about how that looks and call me a fucking martyr again, I swear to god.”

Inside the party, someone laughs. Alex can’t catch his breath; he wants to smash his fist through the pretty frosted glass of the balcony doors. 

He’s seen George act wrecked before, seen him act loss and heartbreak and helplessness and horror, but he’s never seen him genuinely feel any of it until now. 

Apparently, he isn’t as good an actor as Alex thought. 

“Go back to your party,” Alex says, flat. No satisfaction, just a space like a lost tooth, sore and empty and haunted by what used to be there. He steps back. “You’ve got work to do.” 

He doesn’t run when he leaves George standing there, or when he weaves through a sea of eyes picking apart his clenched hands, his wet eyes, picking apart everything he is until he’s just bones stumbling their way somewhere that isn’t  _ here.  _

He leaves his glass on a table in an empty hallway somewhere, beside a vase overflowing with flowers that smell sickly-sweet like a cocktail that’ll fuck you up, like the kind of cocktail he wants right now to fuck him up, and then he runs. 

He makes it outside, somehow, takes big gulps of hot, humid air so he doesn’t lose his last drink all over the lawn of this tacky-ass hotel. 

He stands there for god knows how long, skin crawling hot and cold and hot again. His thumb traces over the imprint the crystal left on his palm, reddened and sore. He needs to go but he doesn’t know where or how. 

“Alexander.” 

Alex flinches, full-body prey animal logic. Not surprise, though. He’s not. 

He doesn’t turn; George comes to him, footsteps softened by the manicured grass. He smells a little less like cologne and a little more like sweat, now. Aside from that: no indication he ran through a crowded party to be here beside Alex. 

“What are you doing?” Alex asks him, quiet. 

“I’ll call a car,” George says, calm and even like they planned this out beforehand. “Let me take you home.” 

Alex looks up at him, incredulous. George’s gaze is clear, steady. Every inch the consummate professional, but Alex knows him. The tension is there, lining his eyes, his mouth. 

“What about your movie?”

“I’ve had more than enough of this job for one night.”

Alex snorts. “You just got back. Don’t tell me you’re tired already?”

“I’m not leaving you here,” George says, low and stubborn in the way that means he’ll make this a fight if he has to, exhausted in the way that means he hopes he won’t have to. “You can’t honestly believe I’d leave you here after that.” 

Alex doesn’t say anything. He reaches for the anger that kept him upright, comes up empty, burned-out like the husk of something that used to be standing. 

George exhales into the night air. “Please, Alex.”

Front page material, right here. Whatever look is on Alex’s face when he tilts it to look up at George. If someone snaps a picture Alex is going to buy every grainy, blown-up version of it to paper the walls of his too-expensive, too-empty apartment. 

He lets George lead him, and at some point a sleek black car purrs up to meet them. The windows are tinted; once the door shuts on him Alex feels it like the cut of a knife, the way he’s himself and not himself with nobody watching. 

George settles into the seat beside him. “Do you mind if we drive around for a while?” 

“Are we going to do this later if I say no?”

“Yes.” 

Alex snorts. “Yeah, whatever.”

George leans forward and says something to the driver, and when he sits back the partition slides up. Alex eyes his reflection in it, looks away. 

George leans back against the headrest for a moment, eyes shut. “Alex --”

“None of this is on you,” Alex says, because George looks sick down to the core of him and even now Alex can’t stand to see it. He fixates on his own hands instead, balled up in his lap. “You helped me out because -- fuck if I know, because you felt bad for me or because you saw something in me or both, but I know it wasn’t because you wanted to fuck me. I was twenty years old and stupid as shit and you looked out for me because it was the right thing to do. I  _ know.  _ But you have to let me return the favor now.”

“I don’t need you to protect me,” George says, and it’s so  _ not the point  _ that Alex could honest to god strangle him. 

“Your reputation isn’t the only one on the line, here.”

Silence for a moment. George putting the pieces together, and Alex has nobody to blame but himself and his own big mouth. “Jefferson said something to you, didn’t he?”

Alex shrugs. “He said a lot of things. He’s an asshole.”

“Alexander.”

“I’m not repeating it.” 

George says nothing. Alex feels him shift, glances over to see George’s fingers curl in against his palms like he’s itching to hit something, and god, Alex would pay every cent he has to see Jefferson’s reaction to George’s face right now. After a minute George’s hands uncurl, the movement slow, controlled, deliberate. 

“I’m so sorry, Alex.” 

Alex glances out the window, his mouth dry. “Yeah, me too.”

George is quiet for a while. Weighing his words, weighing their impact, giving Alex the courtesy Alex didn’t stop to give him. Finally, he says, “People are always going to talk, no matter what you do. It’s not right, but it’s part of being in this industry. That doesn’t mean that you have to let it dictate your life.”

“So I’m just supposed to take it?” Alex glares at him. It’s almost unbearable, but Alex has a long history of making it on  _ almost. “Fuck _ that.” 

“What’s the alternative?” George asks. A passing streetlight cuts a swath across his face, catches on an earring: a bright spot that hurts to look at. “Avoiding me and taking roles under directors you hate, just to prove you can?”

“I wasn’t avoiding --”

“It’s been months, Alex,” George says. Not angry, Alex could work with angry, could sink his teeth into it -- just bone-weary, just tired of this shit. 

Alex’s gaze skips to the side. 

“To be clear,” George says, “I never pitied you. You’re brilliant at what you do, and you deserve every opportunity to show that to the world. I wanted to give that to you, if I could.”

There’s a lump in Alex’s throat that he can barely breathe around. He reaches for his tie, tries to loosen it -- somehow manages to pull it tighter, and isn’t that  _ just  _ like him. “Yeah, and look where all that good Samaritan shit got you.”

“I’m fine with where I am, Alex.”

“Bullshit,” Alex snaps. “You can’t be okay with this -- you and Jefferson have friends in common, if he’s said that shit to my face he’s definitely said it to theirs.”

“Of course I’m not,” George says, and that stings, why the fuck does that  _ sting,  _ “but when you’ve had a career as long as mine, you realize there are always rumors about something, someone -- I can’t count the number of times Martha and I have gotten secretly engaged, eloped, and divorced over the years, and those are usually the kindest speculations about my private life. I don’t engage with it, and everyone moves on.”

“That’s different,” Alex insists. “You’ve never had any influence over Martha’s career, and she’s not --” He cuts himself off, sharp and abrupt. 

George arches a brow, his mouth slanted into something rueful. “A man?” At Alex’s silence, he shrugs. “I’m bothered by the thought of anyone thinking I would take advantage of you, I’ll admit that. The rest doesn’t matter.” His expression is so unbearably gentle. Alex looks away, catches his reflection’s wide, dark eyes in the partition. 

“You have every right to want to defend yourself,” George says, “and I’m grateful you want to defend me, but every reaction you give them will only make it worse. It will pass, Alex, and I swear to you that it won’t be the end of your career by any means. Let it go.”

“And if it doesn’t blow over?”

George frowns. “I don’t see why it wouldn’t.”

Alex presses his teeth together, hard enough to make his jaw twitch. “You never had this problem with Lafayette, or anyone else you’ve mentored over the years.”

Outside, someone lays on their horn, traffic inches forward, the city moves on.

“You think this is your fault,” George says, completely unsurprised. 

“Isn’t it?”

“Of course not, how could it be your fault?”

Alex holds his reflection’s gaze, feels his nails biting into his palms. His mouth works, but nothing comes out. Screaming panic in him, somewhere, but overwhelmingly there’s just numbness. He’s so tired. He’s so fucking tired of this. 

George says, “Alex,” and his voice is achingly soft.

“Don’t,” Alex says, and his voice is -- fucked, honestly, wet and thick and awful. He regrets ever boarding that plane in JFK, he regrets boarding the fucking boat from St. Croix. He could have watched George from the safe remove of a screen for the rest of his mediocre life and spared himself all of this.

“Take me home, I’m done with this.” He’ll sit on the couch he didn’t buy and drink himself sick, because the liquor cabinet is the only thing in the whole apartment that’s not empty. And whenever he crawls out of his hangover he’ll -- survive, probably. That’s all he knows how to do. 

“If that’s what you want,” George says, and his tone is scrubbed clean of any emotion at all. 

Alex makes a noise at the back of his throat, busted-up and choked. “Fuck you.” Of course it’s not what he wants, but when has that ever mattered?

George lets out a breath, harsh. “Look at me.” 

He can’t. If he looks at George it’s over, one way or another it’s over and he  _ can’t -- _

“I’ve spent the better part of the past year agonizing over where I went wrong with you. Look at me and tell me what you want, Alexander.” 

Like it’s that simple. Like it’s always been that simple. 

Alex looks. He’s thorough about it, because why not, if he’s about to kill whatever this is between them  _ why the fuck not _ \-- he traces over George’s thighs where they strain against his suit pants, tensed, his broad chest and shoulders, his biceps not quite hidden under layers of expensive fabric and his hands, one curled tight against his knee and the other pressed down firm against the leather seat like it needs restraining. He drags his eyes up the strong line of George’s neck and goes back to what started all this, lingers on his jaw and his stubborn-set mouth. He knows exactly what’s on his face when he meets George’s eyes. He’s holding himself together by the skin of his fucking teeth, but at least he knows that much. 

It’s a little like watching a mountain crumble -- less natural disaster, more slow erosion. George’s jaw and shoulders lose their hard set, the mask collapses entirely into something Alex doesn’t recognize at all. Not heartbreak, not horror. He can feel the knife dangling somewhere over his head but it hasn’t come down, hasn’t cut yet, and Alex has lived his entire life in the space of that  _ yet.  _

“Alright,” George says, to Alex or to himself, and something comes loose in Alex’s chest -- a knot, or some necessary part of him, he doesn’t know which. 

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Alex asks, because he’s never learned not to bite the hand that feeds, and he’s never learned how to dodge the backhand that comes after it.

George leans back into his seat, loosens his bow tie with practiced ease. “It means we have a lot to talk about when you’re not running on alcohol and fumes and I’m not jetlagged as hell.”

Alex scowls. “I’m not drunk.”

George sighs, the sound coming up from deep in his chest.  _ “Alexander.” _

Alex looks away and nods, curt. The loose thing in his chest rattles, but it’s survivable, so: he ignores it. 

“I haven’t had much of a chance to settle in yet, but it won’t take long to set up the guest room, if you want to come home with me.” Alex turns his head, sharp enough that he thinks he feels something crack, and George pauses, his brows raising in faint concern. “Unless you’d rather I drop you off?”

“No,” Alex says, too quickly. And again: “No. I’ll go to your place.”

George smiles, a small thing, a reprieve that stays and stays. Alex can’t take his eyes off of it for the rest of the drive. 

\-------------

The night’s surprisingly cold, when they step out into it. Maybe it’s just Alex, thin blood coming down from the adrenaline. 

George steps closer so that they’re standing shoulder-to-shoulder, or as close to it as they’ll ever be, at least. Alex holds himself upright for another moment, and then sags against George -- like an empty costume, like some other skin that’s been shed. George rests a hand on his hip, and he holds him steady.   
  


**Author's Note:**

> *shoutout to the anon on tumblr who sent in lana del rey's "without you" as a wham song, hitting me over the head with this au and making me crank out the first 1k literally a year ago.  
> *thanks for reading! leave a kudos and comment if you liked it!  
> *find me on tumblr at [icarusandtheson](https://icarusandtheson.tumblr.com/)


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